Five for Friday (Linky Party May 8, 2015

May 9, 2015

It has been awhile since I’ve been able to blog. I have allowed other life happenings get in the way, and I just can’t seem to get it all done. April was a busy month because along with my teaching, I am a wedding coordinator and I directed 2 weddings along with having meetings with other brides about their upcoming weddings. Oh yea….I also helped host a bridal shower. It is not easy juggling all of this but I find joy in helping these wonderful brides and grooms prepare for their big day.

I think it is time that I get involved with this linky party that Doodle Bugs Teaching provides. It is great to see all of what other teachers do in a week and the ideas are always pretty awesome! So I hope that you find my Five for Friday useful!!

Our school celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week every day! It was a fun a festive week!! We received lots of cards, flowers, balloons, candy, chocolate, and food!

My AP at my school asked if I would make a sign for one of the days where the administration brought in Munchkins for us. Click here to get the PDF free to use it you’d like. The graphics are by Whimsy Clips. The border is by Tracee Orman. The dot font is from Kimberly Geswein Fonts and the pink and orange font is from Teacher Karma.

Go Noodle has been a wonderful resource for me this year. With only 10 days to go, the kids are getting so excited about SUMMER!! These quick brain breaks make it a great way to transition to other activities. I have found that if I just keep the site up on my computer, then it takes less than a minute to find a Go Noodle Movement Song to do and turn the projector and we are ready to GO NOODLE for a minute or two. It’s not just a resource for rainy days. You can find little 1 minute snippets that can help make your day even more engaging.

Here is a pic of what we do for Mother’s Day in our class. One of our sweet art teachers from a while back had our students make these for Mother’s Day. After she left, I just continued to do them. I’ve made them for years and I think they are so cute and a nice keepsake for sure!

They are super easy to make. Here’s how. I usually do this as a small group activity, but this week I was able to get it done as a whole group. I considered THAT a miracle from the Lord!! :):

1. I buy tiles from Lowe’s or Home Depot. These were really nice! So I spent 88 cents on each. However, you can get 12 x 12 99 cent tiles there and have them cut them in fourths for you and that would save money. I just really liked these and I was willing to pay more for them. They had a nice curved corner and were heavier than the cheaper kind.

2. I get old magazines and cut up as many letters to spell I LOVE YOU that I need for my class. I put each set of letters in a baggy and label the baggy with the letter that is in that baggy. Remember that you can turn lowercase n’s upside down to make u.

3. Each child takes a tile and writes his/her name on the back. I get cheap sponge paint brushes and Mod Podge. I pour the Mod Podge in a paper bowl or on a paper plate. The children take the paint brush ( I find that sponge type are better, because the bristles in a regular paint brush can come out and get stuck on the tile.) and dip it in the Mod Podge. They spread it on the tile. Then, they take 1 letter at a time and place each letter on their tile to spell I Love You. I usually paint over the letters with the Mod Podge, so the letters won’t move as they are doing this process.

4. Then, I take a picture that has been taken and developed and I cut it to fit the tile. The child spreads more Mod Podge on the area and we place the pic on top. Then, they spread Mod Podge on the entire tile.

5. We carefully move the tile to a drying area and allow them to dry. It only take about 3 hours for them to dry completely where they won’t stick to anything.

6. We get foam pieces. This year we used heart shape foam pieces and we put 1 in on each corner of the back of the tile. I like to do this to keep the bottom of the tile from scratching furniture once they get home.

7. After they have dried and we have put the foam pieces on the back, we wrap them in bubble wrap. Then, we put them in a gift bag with a handmade card stapled on the outside and they are ready to take home……safe and sound…at least that is our hope and prayer!

This week, we studied insects. What fun it was! Every year, I buy caterpillars from Insect Lore and the kinders get to see metamorphosis in action. Five butterflies hatched and we released them on Friday by our school garden. Four of them flitted off into the sky, but one decided to land on some of the vegetation in the garden and I was able to grab a picture before he/she flew away.

May 8th was National STEM Day

Our grade level chair suggested that we as a grade level celebrate National STEM Day by having each kindergarten teacher teach a different STEM activity and the kinder cubs at our school would rotate to each one. We decided to add the A in STEM so we could get the art in there as well. There are 4 of us all together, so we started at 8:30am and rotated every 20 minutes. It was such an awesome morning!! The students had an absolute ball and it was a nice change of pace for all of us!!

My activity was Sink and Float. I found a blog on how to best do it and it also had a terrific chart that I could download and use. Click here to see the blog and get the free download.

For the Science we predicted and tried out which fruits would sink, float or both. As you can see here, I took a large clear bin I had on hand and filled it with water. I gave each child in the class their own blueberry, strawberry, and grape to put in the bin of water. They loved watching what each fruit did. Then, I took the apple and put it in the water. Finally, for a more dramatic ending to the experiment I gently dropped the cantaloupe in the water. The kinders went crazy when they noticed that the cantaloupe floated and did not sink.

For Technology and Math, I posted the chart on our projector that is connected to my computer. After we took a vote, we circled the prediction that had the most votes for each fruit.

For Engineering and Art. I gave each child a ball of clay and they built a boat that would float. This was not easy. Once 1 or 2 children got their boat to float, we had them share with the others on how they got theirs to float. Therefore, there was lots of conversation happening throughout the process.

Yes! It was messy!

Yes! There were a couple of kinder cubs who cried because they couldn’t get their boats to float.

and

Yes! It was all worth it!

It was a great learning experience. If I had done this in my classroom with just my class, we would have recorded all of this in a science journal or just on paper.

Well…..this was my Five for Friday! I hope you found something here that you can use for your class.

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Hi! I am a kindergarten teacher who is passionate about her job! I am a christian woman who has been married for over 30 years. I have 2 terrific married children with awesome spouses! I also have a 9 year old and 5 month old granddaughter! I am truly blessed beyond measure!!